


Bleed Red, Bruise Blue

by thesecretdetectivecollection



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Drunk flirting, Explicit Language, M/M, Violence, but it's just swearing not really verbal abuse or anything, not that graphic but i mean he does get mugged so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 01:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdetectivecollection/pseuds/thesecretdetectivecollection
Summary: Jamie's walking back from Mickey's new house when he gets mugged. Bruised and bloody, one of the muggers, still just a kid, comes back on his own sometime later and drops him off on the nearest doorstep to get help.In other words, Gary Neville didn't exactly expect to wake up to repeated rings of his doorbell in the middle of the night, and nor does he expect a drunken marriage proposal from a Scouser.





	Bleed Red, Bruise Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the title of this fic and asked to describe what sort of fic I'd write. So I kind of, sort of, accidentally wrote the whole thing. 
> 
> For Megsy

  
Mickey Owen, Asshole ExtraordinaireTM, lives in a shitty part of Manchester, and does not deserve a friend like Jamie Carragher in the first place.  
  
That’s how Jamie feels, anyway, because why the fuck would he leave Liverpool, a solid neighborhood he knows inside and out, where people know him and his connections, for a crappy minimum-wage job and a less-attractive bird than he had before?  
  
“I love her, J,” Mickey had said, on the phone. Jamie suspected he might be on drugs, so when he was invited over for a “flat-warming party,” he actually _agreed_ , in case he needed to save his childhood best friend from his own incredibly stupid decisions.  
  
But no, Mickey had seemed sober… ish. Nothing worse than he’d been doing before, anyway, and his bird had been… kind of a bitch, if Jamie was honest, though maybe that was because he’d openly mocked her city and her accent and her flat in front of her friends. She was also making eyes at that Spanish-looking fella who’d been invited, Christian something—not that Jamie had been paying attention, but the whole thing was clearly doomed.  
  
He’d spent most of the evening drinking and telling Mickey to come back home, that his mother knew a girl, really gorgeous, and girls in Liverpool were hotter than girls in Manchester anyway, and, like, they _put out,_ _too_ , so what was there not to like?  
  
“Ah, fuck off, what’d _you_ know about birds putting out?” Mickey slurred, waving a hand, “you’ve been going from dick to dick since we were sixteen! And god, they really _were_ all dicks, you have the worst taste in men I have ever seen—if I have to go knock out _another_ man who treats you like shit, J, I swear to god—“  
  
“Look, I still hear things, okay? And as I was saying, this girl, she’s fucking fit, mate, could’ve walked straight out of a magazine, she’s got a great—“  
  
“ _I’m with someone_ , J-Jamesy!”  
  
It was either James, or Jamie. The combination of the two meant that Mickey was beyond all reasoning, too shit-faced by far to hear sense.  
  
“I—I gotta get to the train station anyway, Steve’s pickin’ me up and drivin’ me home, brother needed the car to take his girl out. I’m gonna go, kay? Come home when you get tired of her, Mickey Mouse. You deserve better.”  
  
Mickey pulls him in for a clumsy hug and an obnoxiously wet kiss on the cheek, and Jamie stumbles outside.  
  
The station’s close, but it’s late, and he’s completely plastered. It’s not his fault, either—many a Scouser has been driven to drink in fuckin’ Manchester.  
  
It wouldn’t be such a problem, either, if Mickey didn’t live in such a shitty part of town—boarded up windows, dogs barking loudly as Jamie walks past the run-down houses. He’s a city boy, and a Scouser, Jamie is, he knows how to handle himself… or he did, three beers and a few shots ago.  
  
But the streetlight on the corner is broken, and every single fiber of Jamie’s being is telling him to go back to Mickey’s and stay the night, tell Stevie to stay home, and just catch the next train, in the morning. But his ma would worry, and he's a strong, tall lad, not an ideal target anyway. If he can just walk like a sober man and stand straight, nobody’s gonna want to mess with him. He puts his hand in his pocket anyway, feels for the pocket knife he carries with him. It’s mostly for jiggling the lock to his house if it gets jammed again, or carving a bit of wood into something pretty for the boys, but it’s a good deterrent, too, when the need arises.  
  
He rounds the corner, and there’s a fist in his gut before he can take a breath, which sucks, because all the air’s been knocked out of him. There’s a guy on top of him, punching him in the face, but Jamie knows how to deal with this type of punk-ass kid, looking for a little extra lunch money. He writhes around, enough to get an arm out from where the guy’s thighs have been pinning them down, and jams it into his pocket, and in one fluid motion, the knife is up and at the guy’s throat.  
  
“Fuckin’ Mancs,” he hisses, “dirty rats, all of ya. Now you’re gonna get up off me now, kid, one way or another. The only choice you’ve gotta make is if you’re gonna be alive when you do it."  
  
“Bad luck, Indy,” a second voice sneers, as more forms emerge from the darkness. Panic settles heavy in Jamie’s stomach, and his heart starts racing when he feels the cold circle on his forehead and knows it to be the barrel of a gun. “You just brought a knife to a gun fight.”  
  
“I can still kill him,” Jamie says harshly, “losing one of your own for a couple quid and a cheap phone, is that really worth it?”  
  
The guy is stock-still on top of him, trembling, and when the half moon comes out from under a cloud Jamie sees for the first time how fucking _young_ he actually is. Can’t be any more than sixteen, and his eyes are wide with fear, and he’s about a second from pissing himself.  
  
Which would not be ideal, considering he’s currently sat across Jamie’s ribs.  
  
“You honestly think you can slit his throat before I pull the trigger and blow your brains out?”  
  
He sounds confident, the man holding Jamie’s life in his hands, but _the_ _kid_ —the kid is Jamie’s baby brother’s age, the sort whose mum would weep for days at the loss of her baby. He—he can’t do it. He lowers the knife, the kid scrambles off him, and Jamie is grabbed by the arms and held down against a wall while the muggers take turns punching him. Even the kid has a go, though Jamie looks him in the eyes beforehand, and he goes easy, pulls his punches. Mercy for mercy, even if it was a small one. His cheek and lip are busted, one of his eyes is swelling shut, and he can’t keep himself up anymore.  
  
He collapses to the ground, and the gunslinger kicks him in the ribs, hard. Then the others follow suit, until Jamie hears a snap and feels a stabbing pain in his chest.   
  
“Clean him out,” comes the order, and two arms lift him up while other hands, smaller—the kid, probably—dig through his pockets and take his wallet—no credit cards, thank god, he’d given it to his brother for his date, and less than thirty quid, enough for train fare with a bit left over if he got hungry or needed it—his shitty Nokia flip phone (Jamie’s never been so glad to _not_ have money), and his pocket knife.  
  
“Next time you wanna chat shit, you Scouse cunt, you’re gonna get _banged_.” Cool metal is pressed against his forehead again, leaving no doubts as to his meaning.  
  
Jamie mentally apologizes to his mother, hopes his middle brother can pick up the slack somehow—Stevie will look after them all, Jamie knows he will, Stevie’s a good friend, a brother, in soul if not in blood—or maybe Dad would come back from whatever dirty little hole he’d slithered into after he’d left them, when his now sixteen year old brother was still in nappies—  
  
“But this time, you get to live,” finishes the voice smoothly, and the arms drop him. He lies in the alleyway for some time—he can’t tell how long, because he’s drifting in and out of consciousness. But eventually, there are small hands, skinny arms trying to lift him up, and he has to help, _he has to help_ or he’s going to die here—  
  
It’s the kid again. The mugger. He looks wracked with guilt, but together he and Jamie manage to maneuver him onto the doorstep of the nearest house. The kid scampers off after that, and Jamie manages to lift his hand and hold it against the doorbell.  
  
He presses it again and again and again, until a furious-looking man answers the door.  
  
“What the everloving _fuck_ do you think you’re doing—“ he shrieks, until he looks down and Jamie, who looks up at him and licks his bleeding lips before he speaks. The man pales instantly.  
  
“Need…phone.” Jamie manages to say, one hand clapped against the side with a broken rib. “P-please.”  
  
“ _Holy shit_ ,” the man breathes, “those fucking _maniacs_ , I’m going to kill them all, what the fuck were they thinking?”  
  
“Phone,” Jamie prompts again, fighting hard against unconsciousness.  
  
“Yeah, course, let me get you inside, then we’ll call the police, and the ambulance, Jesus Christ, they’ve never gone this far before—Where—where are you hurt?”  
  
“Face. Chest.”  
  
“Back and legs are okay? I can move you?”  
  
Jamie lets out an ambivalent grunt. Everything hurts, but his arms, back, and legs are about as good as he feels anywhere.  
  
“Okay, mate, hang on, we’re gonna get you inside, get you cleaned up as much as we can, it’s okay, and then I’ll call the ambulance—“ He's nice, this guy, Jamie thinks fuzzily, he looks nice. He has dark hair and a furrow between his eyebrows that Jamie wants to smooth out, and he has beautiful brown eyes that are so concerned about something—and Jamie wants him to never worry about anything, this beautiful, kind man.  
  
“Gonna be ‘kay,” he croaks.  
  
The stranger chokes on a laugh. “Yeah, mate, I know, it’s gonna be okay, I should be telling _you_  that. My name’s Gary, okay? We’re gonna get through this together, so be strong for me, lad. Can you tell me your name?”  
  
“Gary,” Jamie says dumbly. It’s a nice name. It suits his face. He looks like the sort of man Jamie could come home to at night.  
  
“No, love, Gary’s _my_ name, what’s yours? Are you Gary too?”

“J—Jamie.”

  
“Okay, Jamie, I’m gonna get you inside, get you on a nice soft sofa, clean you up a bit, and call some people for you, okay?”  
  
Jamie blinks up at him.  
  
Beautiful Gary helps him stand up and wraps Jamie’s arm around his shoulders, and he’s so warm and clean, and he smells like sleep and soap and Jamie thinks it might not be so bad to die here with this beautiful Gary.  
  
“W-wallet?” Jamie asks weakly. Jamie couldn’t remember if they’d given it back after they’d taken what they’d wanted.  
  
“Jamie, bear with me, okay? I’m gonna look through your pockets, see if they’ve left it…” Gary pulls out his worn down wallet and finds his ID and a picture of his family, Mum and the boys. Even Stevie had been there. Gary moves so Jamie’s head is in his lap. “Okay, love, I want you to look at this picture while I call the police, okay?”  
  
“No. Just ambulance. No—no point,” Jamie mutters.  
  
“I—I can drive you, to the hospital, if you need me to. Might be quicker,” Gary says quietly. He’s so gentle, and Jamie can feel his hand, brushing through his hair. It’s so lovely, so very lovely, Jamie just wants to close his eyes and fall asleep.  
  
“No, Jamie, you can’t do that right now,” Gary says softly, “stay awake for me, Jamie, consider it a favor, okay? Do your new friend Gary a little favor. Now, who should I call? Should I call your family?”  
  
“S—Stevie. Call Stevie.” Mickey had just changed his number when he’d left Liverpool, he couldn’t remember his new one, and Stevie would keep calm—calmer than his mum, at least. “Stevie takes care of me. He always does,” Jamie whispers.  
  
“Okay, I’ll call him for you, okay? I just need you to give me a number so I can let him know you need him.”  
  
Jamie recites the number he’s had memorized for six years because Stevie, bless him, never changes it.  
  
Gary calls the number.  
  
“H-hullo? Is this Stevie?”  
  
“Yes,” Stevie says suspiciously.  
  
“Hi, my name is Gary Neville, I live in Manchester, I woke up to your friend Jamie at my doorstep, he’s in a pretty bad way, face all busted up, and this is the number he gave me to call…”  
  
Jamie hears a loud Scouse curse and he loves Stevie, with his whole heart.  
  
“I—I’m going to take him to the hospital, I just wanted to let you know, so you could tell his family—“  
  
“How bad is he?”  
  
“I—I don’t know, he’s covered in dirt, his shirt’s all messed up, ripped and—ripped and bloody, and his face is bleeding, didn’t even recognize his ID in his wallet—he says they’ve hurt his chest too, I haven’t looked—“  
  
They talk for awhile, and then Gary tells him he’ll call again when he has more information, and Stevie's probably driving over, if Jamie knows him at all.  
  
Gary looks down at Jamie. “I know we’ve only just met, James, but I need to have a look at your chest and belly, okay?” Jamie blinks and doesn’t stop him when he reaches for the hem of his t-shirt and pulls up—it had been such a nice blue shirt, but now it was so dirty, he’d have to throw it away.  
  
Maybe he could be buried in another shirt like this. He wanted to look good on his last day, after all.  
  
“Oi, none of that, now, James, you’re not dying, that’s rubbish, you’re going to be fine. We’re gonna get you to hospital and patched up, okay?”  
  
Jamie nods as best he can. He loves Gary. Gary is the best. He should tell him. People should tell people when they loved them.  
  
“I love you, Gary. You’re the best. Even though you’re a Manc. The guys that hurt me, they were Mancs too. But you’re nice. Pretty.”  
  
“Thank you, Jamie, I appreciate that. You’re also… pretty. When your face isn’t broken.” Gary says awkwardly.  
  
“We should get married. What’s your name?”  
  
“Gary, James, I told you before, my name is Gary.”  
  
“Noooo, your other name. Mine is Carra—Carragher. Yours?”  
  
“Neville. It’s Gary Neville. I’m gonna call my brother, okay? He’s a nurse, he’ll help me figure out how to take care of you.”  
  
“Eh, just gimme a kiss, I’ll be good as new. Doesn’t even hurt anymore.”  
  
Jamie’s lying, of course, it hurts like a bitch, but he wants Gary Neville to marry him, and he’ll like him better if he’s tough. Can’t exactly tell him he wants to cry into his mum’s lap, can he?  
  
Gary’s stroking Jamie’s hair absently and talking on the phone to his brother. Jamie is so fucking tired. He gets to sleep now, doesn’t he? It’s been long enough now?  
  
His eyes drift shut.  
  
“No, J, you can’t do that,” Gary Neville says sternly.  
  
“You wanna be Gary Carragher?”  
  
“You know what? Yeah. I’ll marry you, Jamie Carragher. Just stay awake for me, and I’ll go out and buy us some rings in the morning. But only if you stay awake for me, okay?”  
  
Jamie nods, and eventually Gary leaves and his head is on a pillow and the pillow isn’t as nice as Gary’s leg, but then there’s cold on his face and it feels nice, and then it stops feeling like anything at all after awhile, goes numb.  
  
“Okay, James. You and me, we’re going to the hospital, okay? Ambulance or car?”  
  
Jamie shrugs weakly.  
  
“Ambulance it is then.”  
  
The ambulance arrives a few minutes later, and they almost refuse to let Gary come along, but then Jamie starts saying that he’s only gonna go to the fucking Manc hospital if he can take Gary with him.  
  
“What is your relationship to this man?” the female paramedic asks, looking extremely unimpressed with Gary’s gray t-shirt and red plaid boxers.  
  
“We’re… engaged.” Gary technically isn’t lying, is he? Is it illegal to lie to a paramedic? Was it like lying to a cop? But they had a verbal agreement, that should count for something, surely.  
  
The paramedic looks skeptical, but agrees, and Gary rides in the back of the ambulance in his underwear holding a complete stranger’s hand.  
  
They get Jamie admitted right away, rush him in even faster when they see the extensive black and blue bruising on the left side of his chest, and Gary just barely catches the paramedic summing up the Jamie’s injuries— “Extensive facial injuries, surface abrasions on dorsal side, priority is definite broken rib, bruising indicates likely pneumothorax, clearly been drinking, breathing is shallow, pulse elevated—“  
  
The doctor takes over smoothly—“get me a CT and a chest X-ray, need his blood alcohol levels, sir, you’re going to have to wait outside in the waiting room—“  
  
Gary gets booted out, and the last thing he sees is Jamie, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes, reaching out for him as his gurney is wheeled away.  
  
Gary swallows hard, and sits on the chair in the waiting room—it’s cold under his legs, and eventually the receptionist brings him a pair of scrub pants and tells him he can’t be in the hospital in just his boxers.  
  
He gets a phone call from Stevie a few minutes in, asking which hospital they’re at.  
  
“Thank you—for staying with him, he means the world to me—he’s my best mate in the world, he’s the man of the house, after his dad ran off, he’s got two little brothers—takes care of ‘em like a father, and his mum—what I’m trying to say is he would’ve been missed. We would’ve missed him. It would’ve broken our hearts, if you hadn’t been home or didn’t answer the door. So thank you. For saving him.”  
  
Gary tries very hard not to feel guilty, because he’d _left_ him, Jamie was alone now, inside with the doctors and the nurses and the machines beeping—  
  
“They kicked me out. They won’t let me go into his room with him. Not yet.”  
  
“He’s a strong man, Jamie is. He’ll pull through, and I’m on my way—he knows I’ll kick his ass to hell and back if he dies on me—“ Stevie’s voice is breaking a little, and Gary’s heart is too, a little.  
  
“He was doing okay,” Gary says reassuringly, “his face will heal up, and he’ll have all the girls all over him again. Though we are engaged now, since he asked me to marry him. Couldn’t see straight and bled all over my couch, but I still said yes.”  
  
Stevie laughs wetly. “You’re more his type than any girls. He’ll probably want to take you out to dinner after this, when he’s all fixed up. Probably make it out like he’s a big, strong, tough guy, but he’s a softie. It’ll be a nice change from him dating complete twats, anyway.”  
  
They call Gary up and tell him he can go in, and he says goodbye to Stevie and hangs up.  
  
Jamie looks… clean. That’s the first thing. The dirt, the tear tracks, the grime, the blood—everything’s gone. He looks so much better, even under the harsh fluorescent light. The swelling’s gone down on his eye, and they’ve set his nose, and somehow it looks better now than it had before. His lip is still split, and he’s got stitches over his eyebrow and on one of his cheeks, and he might be the most beautiful person Gary’s ever seen.  
  
“Do—do you remember me?” he asks tentatively.  
  
“How could I forget my fiancé?” Jamie asks, laughing. Gary blushes, even though he has nothing to be ashamed of—he wasn’t the one who _proposed to a fucking stranger_ , after all. He was just, you know, the one who’d accepted.  
  
“Come sit, tell me what a fool I made of myself, Stevie will want all the best stories.”  
  
“Yeah—I was talking to him on the phone, actually. I can phone him again, you can talk to him, tell him you’re okay?”  
  
“There’s really no need,” comes a distinctly Scouse voice from the doorway.  
  
“Stevie!” Jamie’s grinning and Stevie rushes right over and hugs him.  
  
“Oof—careful now, mate, I’ve got a broken rib, they had to drain fluid out of me lung, take it easy.”  
  
“What the fuck happened?”  
  
“Got mugged, lad. They had a gun.”  
  
“Jesus Christ.” Stevie drops into the other chair, but he doesn’t seem too eager to kick Gary out, and he hasn’t heard the story either, so he settles down and notes that Stevie takes Jamie’s hand while Jamie tells them about the muggers, and the one who actually had a soul and saved him.  
  
“He was me brother’s age, I didn’t have the heart for it,” Jamie says quietly, “figured you’d look after Mum and the boys, Steve.”  
  
“Of course I would’ve. You’re my best mate, remember? And I’m gonna fuckin’ slaughter Mickey for moving out here, this never would’ve happened at his old place.”  
  
“That’s because his old place was in our neighborhood.”  
  
“Exactly. Piece of shit shouldn’t have left.”  
  
“Mate, his new bird isn’t even that fit. I mean, I know I’ve been with men lately, but I can tell when a woman’s pretty, and she’s _not_.”  
  
“Guess he finally found someone who deserves him then,” Stevie says, and they both giggle conspiratorially. Gary just sits awkwardly, until Jamie looks up at him.  
  
“Uh, I’m sorry for showing up on your doorstep half-dead,” Jamie says to Gary.  
  
“Don’t be. Wanna go out for dinner?”  
  
Jamie pulls out a slow smirk that Stevie’s seen him pull on loads of people, men and women alike, and there’s something about the glint in his eyes that just makes it _irresistible_ —  
  
“Sure. Least I can do for the future Mr. Gary Carragher, after all.”  
  
\---  
  
“And that was how Jamie got Gary, who’s way too good for you, J, seriously—“ Jamie nods, in complete agreement. “—to go out with him,” Stevie says, in his crisp dark suit, raised glass of champagne in his hand, standing next to his seated best friend, “I told you it was a hell of a story! To the groom and groom!” The room bursts into thunderous applause.  
  
There’s a tiny scar above his eyebrow, and one on his cheek, and Gary kisses each of them before he pulls Jamie close and kisses his new husband. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Also Carra did get a broken rib and mild pneumothorax in 2007 when he and Pepe Reina were both going for a ball and didn't communicate well beforehand, and Pepe's hand fought Jamie's rib and won. Jamie played again a week later.


End file.
